Definitely cool, probably impractical?

Sunset website – photo by Andrea Gómez Romero

Sometimes I see something so cool I want to share it. I found this on Serenity in the Garden.

But I do have one question: How do they mow the grass that spirals through the walkway?

Tags: Serenity in the Garden, spiraling grass

In the quest for health…

I’ve been overweight for most of my life, but other than that, I’m pretty healthy.

Now I know I should drop a few—okay maybe 65—pounds, but I’ve had a hard time getting motivated to do so. At a recent check-up, my blood pressure was borderline high. I was instructed to come back in a few weeks to take my blood pressure again to see if it was still elevated.

On the way to my follow-up appointment, I found myself hoping that my doctor would order me to go on a strict diet to bring down my blood pressure. It sounds crazy, but I knew that might be the only way to light a fire under me.

A very pleasant technician took my blood pressure twice, and both times it was perfectly normal.  Didn’t she want to try a third time, I inquired. No, if I’d had two different readings, I’d need a third; but two identical readings in the safe range meant that I was done for the day.

I know I should have been relieved, but I felt cheated. When is somebody going to tell me I have to lose weight to be healthy? How much longer should I wait? And who will it be?

Damn. I guess it has to be me.

 

Tags: high blood pressure, overweight

Sister cities a good match

Who said Dull people don’t have a sense of humor?

Recently a native of the unfortunately monikered town of Dull, Scotland traveled stateside and happened upon the city of Boring, Oregon, where she was struck by a moment of brilliance. When she returned home, she made all the arrangements for Dull and Boring to become perfectly paired sister cities.

They even have their own Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dull-Boring/348529295207568

This news comes by way of “News of the Weird,” which I read religiously in my daily newspaper.

Tags: Boring Oregon, Dull Scotland, perfectly paired sister cities

Are bras the enemy?

I always meet interesting people at the Last Friday Ladies Lunch (LFLL) at Berkeley’s Hillside Club. Or sometimes I already know them in one capacity but learn a whole different side to them.

Lynn is a fellow writer, but I noticed that the name tag Sylvia had made for her read “bra expert.” I knew that Sylvia took certain creative liberties when making our name tags because mine read “humorist.” ( I think our name tags reflect Sylvia’s personal perspective on who we are to her.)

Anyhoo, I asked Lynn—whose resume probably lists something closer to “women’s health professional”—what her name tag was all about. And boy, did I learn a lot.

Apparently in cultures where women don’t wear bras, there are no incidents of breast cancer. In bra-wearing cultures, women get breast cancer all the time. I found this alarming. I realize that these two facts don’t necessarily mean that wearing bras actually gives one cancer. But it made me think.

Then my mind flashed to Grandma. As my sisters and I began developing, we lived with two fears that faced us every time Grandma reached out to hug us: that our breasts would one day sag to our waists and the skin beneath our arms would become large flaps that would sway in the breeze.

So my response to Lynne when she told me this was that I just wasn’t one of those women who could pull off the braless lifestyle, vaguely motioning to my hefty mounds and the southerly direction they were likely to go if left to their own devices.  But Lynn just discreetly looked downward to her own chest and told me she wasn’t wearing a bra. Of course if Lynne had been one of those Twiggy types whose shape didn’t change much from shoulders to hips, I could have dismissed her example as a veritable apples-and-oranges situation. (Or maybe oranges and raisins…)

But Lynn’s cup size (if she wore a bra) would be further along the alphabet than my C, and she looked nothing like Grandma—in fact, she was the picture of elegance.

I countered with the absolute necessity of wearing a sports bra when I work out, wincing slighty to illustrate the pain I would endure if I were ever to mount the elliptical at the gym in just a T-shirt. She asked how often I worked out and for how long. When I answered, she said that 45 minutes four times a week is a lot less time than wearing one all day every day. And then she explained how massages could restore circulation once the bra was off.

By wearing bras for 12 to 16 hours a day, we are sacrificing a good deal of healthy circulation. Consider what bras do, not only to your breasts but to your shoulders, back, and ribcage. It pushes some parts together and squeezes, pulls, and binds other parts to form a shape that has been deemed attractive by society.

So women end up treating their bodies like lumps of Play-dough. And to what end? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that bras were a conspiracy dreamed up by men who wanted to put our mammaries in cages. And that conspiracy is being perpetuated by all the women who believe that going braless would be wrong somehow, either because they would experience premature sag or look like hussies. I had bought into the whole thing, which is bad enough, but now it could be detrimental to my health? I had to make a stand.

So I took off my bra. (Not right there at the luncheon, but later, when I got home.) In order to address the issue of nipple irritation, I dug out my old cotton camisoles, which I figure will give me the protection I require in that area.

And I didn’t wear a bra for the next 24 hours.

But on Saturday I was scheduled to sing in a choral concert for an assisted living community. I pictured elderly residents taking note of my liberated chest and I couldn’t do it. I put on a bra. I bowed to the societal pressure that was inside my own head.

When I returned home, I was ashamed. What kind of feminist am I if I can’t sing in front of a bunch of old people without a bra on? And I replied to myself, “a feminist who doesn’t want people to think she’s trying to look sexy when actually going braless gives her more of a saggy Grandma vibe.” And then I realized I was talking about myself in the third person, which I hate.

So I decided to take it one day at a time. I didn’t wear a bra for the rest of the week. At first it felt weird, but the more I didn’t wear one, the more comfortable I became. Every once in a while I would be talking to someone and I’d think, I’m not wearing a bra, and I bet that person doesn’t even know that I’m not wearing a bra. And then the person would be looking at me, expecting an answer of some sort and I would realize that I had no idea what we had been talking about.

But I am confident that soon I will be able to carry on an entire conversation without even thinking about bras. And if I decide to wear a bra sometimes, that’s still better than all the time, right?

But I’ll be really pissed if I go through all this and get breast cancer anyway.

Tags: bra expert, braless lifestyle, breast cancer, conspiracy to put our mammaries in a cage, saggy Grandma vibe

Notes from an official giver on World Book Night 2012

World Book Night 2012 went by so fast.

I got out my Sharpies and some used foam core and made two posters. Dave helped me attach them to my little shopping cart. Wearing my official giver pin, we drove to South Berkeley.

We stopped at a laundromat on Sacramento just north of Ashby. We asked people inside if they were interested in receiving a free book. Many looked skeptical, wondering what our game was. I explained that I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was the inspiring true story of Maya Angelou’s difficult childhood and one of my favorite books. The first young man I approached said he was already a reader and read books all the time, so he was not in need of encouragement; but he pointed out another man in the back of the laundromat who he was sure needed a nudge. Unfortunately, the man turned out not to read English, but smiled at my offer. I wished I’d had a Spanish language copy to distribute as well. We managed to give away a few copies, and one woman promised to start reading it right away while she was waiting for her laundry.

Then we stepped outside and wandered down the sidewalk maybe a hundred feet or so until we reached a small market where people were coming and going. We gave our spiel about World Book Night and how we were giving away free books to encourage reading. We asked if people knew who Maya Angelou is, and most had at least heard of her.

One woman had actually met Ms. Angelou and another had seen her speak at the Paramount some years ago. One woman was just eager to get something for free and said, “If it’s free, I’ll use it for toilet paper!” When I tried to explain that the idea was for her to read it, she laughed and told me she was just joking and that she’d read it.

We met a few people who really didn’t want a book and a few who had already read the book and agreed that it was great. One man said that he’d like to have the book but his eyes were getting so bad that he couldn’t read any more. Dave suggested that he have someone read it to him, and he said he’d give it to his wife, and maybe she’d read it to him. He happily put the book in his plastic grocery  bag, got on his bike, and pedaled away. I hope he sees cars on the road better than words on the page…

It was definitely a positive experience. I hope that it continues to be an annual event. Even if only one of the 24 people read it and get out of it as much as I did, I would consider it a success. Of course I hope all the copies get read and those recipients pass it on to a friend or family member who will continue to pass it along. What if the 24 copies of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings get read by 72 people? Or more!

It felt good giving away brand new books to people who might otherwise not read them. Plus, I figure that, as a writer, I can’t just write words and hope they get read. I have to support reading any way I can. And if that means literally putting a book in someone’s hands, then that’s what I’ll do!

Bravo to the many book publishers, paper producers, booksellers, and authors (who waived their royalty rights for this give-away) for their contributions to this worthy project.

I’m already excited about doing it again next year.

For more info on World Book Night, go to www.worldbooknight.org.

Tags: book give-away, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou, World Book Night 2012

Life After Shopping Gospel preaches against consumerism

Reverend Billy Talen has a mission—to spread the word that consumerism is the devil’s playground and we need not walk through the valley of the shadow of debt. Part performance artist, part eco-warrior, and part political activist, the sum of Reverend Billy’s parts adds up to entertaining consciousness raising.

Whereas most street preachers warn their audience away from sin, Reverend Billy stakes out a spot near the Disney Store in Times Square and affirms that there is life after shopping. With the flair of a TV evangelical minister and moussed hair reminiscent of Elvis, the reverend also boards buses, crashes Starbucks (who has a restraining order against him coming within so many feet of any of their ubiquitous coffee shops), and urges folks to host Thanksgiving dinners in bank lobbies. He also showed up at quite a few 99% events, spreading the gospel of Life After Shopping (previously the Church of Stop Shopping). The Stop Shopping Gospel Choir backs him up with songs about the evils of consumerism.

The subject of Morgan Spurlock’s documentary What Would Jesus Buy? Reverend Billy has been around for awhile. But he keeps talking the good talk. Or yelling it.

You gotta love a guy who has so much fun making his point. And by creating this persona who wears white suits and carries an oversized megaphone, Billy Talen is more entertaining than the typical activist. Face it—most activists have good intentions but not much in the way of a sense of humor.

Billy describes himself this way: he puts the “odd back in God.”

He is based in NYC but used to live in San Francisco. I hope he comes back to the Bay Area at some point to tour because I would relish being in a crowd that gets to shout Hallelujah when a charismatic speaker in a pompadour preaches. And, being a devout atheist, I don’t get that chance very often.

See videos and more on his website: http://www.revbilly.com/

Tags: Church of Life After Shopping, Church of Stop Shopping, evils of consumerism, Reverend Billy Talen

Eco artist was ahead of his time

“Without an environment which is befitting to man and without peace with nature an existence worthy of man is impossible. These peace negotiations with nature must begin soon or it will be too late.”

It sounds like something an environmentalist might have said in recent years, but the speaker’s ideas were formed well before the current rush to be green.

Friedrich Stowasser  (December 15, 1928 – February 19, 2000) was an Austrian painter who made up and took on the unwieldy name, Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser, which means “Peace-Kingdom Hundred-Water.”

A controversial but popular figure in his home town of Vienna, Hundertwasser had distinct ideas about architecture being in harmony with man and nature, and he often lectured on this topic.

The federal chancellor suggested to Vienna’s mayor that Hundertwasser be given the opportunity to design public housing. And thus Hundertwasser House was born. It took years to find the right spot and negotiate Hundertwasser’s requirements. The original architect left the project, skeptical that this artist’s crazy ideas would ever be implemented. But it was completed in 1986 and is still a point of pride for the city.

Believing that “an uneven floor is a divine melody to the feet,” Hundertwasser designed the apartment complex to have undulating floors. The roof is covered with earth and grass, and trees grow from inside the rooms, branches protruding from windows. Speaking of these “tree tenants,” as he calls them:

“They are a gift of the house to the outside world, for the people who pass by the house. Man gives voluntarily small territories of his dwelling space back to nature, from which we unlawfully appropriated and destroyed large areas.”

Another feature of the apartment complex springs from Hundertwasser’s belief that every tenant has a  ”window right” to personalize the area around his windows on the outside of the building.

Composting toilets contribute to the eco-conscious atmosphere, as does a whole water-treatment system that cleanses used water for reuse.

What happened? With all this forward thinking thirty years ago, why aren’t there variations of Hundertwasser Houses all over the world? It’s not just a theoretical concept—it’s a proven commodity. It’s a living example that’s been in operation long enough to deem a success on many fronts: government-sponsored housing, art, architecture, and environmentally friendly habitation in the middle of a big city.

So I’m formally challenging governments and private industry around the planet: follow Vienna’s example. I propose tree tenants, window rights, and composting toilets for all!

Tags: Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Hundertwasser House, Vienna

Why Anne Lamott is my new hero

If you read yesterday’s post, you know that I saw Anne and Sam Lamott at Dominican College reading from their new book, Some Assembly Required. Anne Lamott is always entertaining, and it was especially enlightening to watch her interactions with her now-grown son Sam, whose more reserved demeanor made a perfect complement to her witty, meandering, off-the-cuff banter.

Sam felt the need to explain why his mother was not answering questions directly by saying that she starts with A and ends up at Z, and he occasionally looked at his watch as a reminder that she didn’t have to spend so much time on one question, usually after she had long abandoned the original thread of her answer in favor of something even funnier that crossed her mind. Anne freely admits that she tends to wander from one topic to another in a sort of free association, but that is part of her charm and why Q&A sessions are particularly fun.

When Anne accidentally said “Jax” instead of “God” at one point (and what grandmother doesn’t confuse her only grandson with the holy guy),  she gave Sam a sidelong glance and then revealed to the audience: “Sam loves it when I mess up.” Sam smiled impishly and nodded.

But Jax is not the only one in such high esteem. During another passage, she mistakenly referred to Jax as “Sam,” which puts both of them at a rather high level if you work out the equation to its logical end:

 Jax = God. Jax = Sam. Therefore, Sam = God.

And although everyone in the room knew instinctively already that this was true, Anne told us that the most important day of her life was the day she gave birth to Sam, and the second was the day Jax was born. I’m a sucker for a devoted mom, especially if that devotion manifests itself in humor.

All that love and devotion notwithstanding, my favorite moment of the evening was during Q&A when Anne attributed the quality of her writing to her copyeditors and claimed that they were the ones that kept her from “looking stupid.” Not only did she win me over with her humbleness, but she sang the praises of her copyeditors, who are generally restricted to the nosebleed seats in the arena of public attention. Not that I’m bitter or anything…

She spoke about wanting to organize the country of India, dispensed advice on how to use real people in fiction, and defended her maligned cranberry spritzers. You know— A to Z.

Tags: A-Z, Anne Lamott, funny moms, maligned cranberry spritzers, organize India, Sam Lamott, sing the praises of copyeditors, Some Assembly required

Sam Lamott grew up while we watched

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Anne Lamott and her son Sam speak at Dominican College. (Go Penguins!) Sponsored by the college and Marin’s amazing independent bookseller Book Passage, the two read excerpts from their new book, Some Assembly Required, which is sort of a sequel to Lamott’s seminal treatise on single motherhood, Operating Instructions (1993).

When Anne Lamott discovered at the age of 55 that she was going to be a grandmother, the seeds for this book were planted. Sam at 19 and Amy at 20 were going to be parents. Some Assembly Required is mostly the voice of Anne the grandmother recounting the first year of Jax’s life. But it has “interviews” with Sam that feature day-to-day details of poopy diapers, sleep deprivation, and sheer joy over the kinds of things that only parents understand.

I have especially fond memories of reading Operating Instructions because it came out when I was at home on maternity leave with my daughter nineteen years ago. I remember reading it in the glider while Kylie nursed, awkwardly turning pages and trying not to poke her in the head with the book’s corner. (By the way, for those of you who didn’t have a baby in the ’90s, a glider is a really comfy rocking chair without the dangerous rocking component that crushes cat’s tails and crawling babies.)

Lamott dared to write down those thoughts that all mothers have but don’t admit to, e.g., If I left the baby outside just one night, I could catch up on my sleep and be a better mom tomorrow. A whole generation of mothers sighed in relief, realizing they weren’t evil for occasionally wishing that their sweet, precious babies would just go away for an hour or so.

Because so many of us related to that book, we all felt a closeness not only to Anne but to her son, whose young life was well documented. I witnessed this at her readings over the years, whether the book was non-fiction or a novel: the first question posed during Q&A was inevitably “How is Sam?” We were all mothers by proxy, invested in that little boy’s well-being.

And so it was not just with a casual reader’s anticipation of seeing an author that I awaited Sam’s turn to read—I found myself inexplicably feeling proud of this boy-turned-man whom I’d never met before. I can only surmise that in my fresh state of motherhood nineteen years ago, I so identified with Anne Lamott (even though I was not a single mother and not nearly as neurotic), that I felt a motherly devotion to little Sam.

I think that is why when he signed my copy of Some Assembly Required, I smiled tearfully at him and stupidly gushed, “You’ve turned out to be such a handsome young man.” As if I were his doddering great-aunt who only saw him irregularly at weddings and funerals.

Of course he is handsome, but that’s not what I really meant. I was congratulating him in my own way for becoming his own person despite being the only child of a famous writer whose personality is a force of nature. I was thanking him for having allowed me to peek at his childhood and now get an inside look at his own child’s first year.

I guess I was just a proud mother by proxy.

Tomorrow: why Anne Lamott is my new hero.

Tags: Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions, Sam Lamott, Some Assembly required

Glorious photos everywhere!

I subscribe to several blogs and don’t have time to read them all. Which is why it’s nice to sign up for a few photo blogs. I’ve seen some great pictures lately.

Easter was of course an event that inspired much picture-taking, and Polly Nance took lots of great photos. My favorite one is this one, “Lennon in time-out.” See the rest at http://watchingthephotoreels.com/2012/04/09/a-black-and-white-parade-of-easter-images/.

The Albany Patch has a photo gallery of some breathtaking sunsets.

And the El Cerrito Patch is collecting photos of local wildflowers.

Serenity in the Garden was all tulips. (Click here to see them.)

Spring is in the air!

Tags: Albany Patch, Easter photos, El Cerrito Patch, Polly Nance, Serenity in the Garden, sunset, wildflowers